Bf109-E interior paint cockpit sides.

[Guest]

Help!!! What is the best paint colour for the cockpit of a Bf109-E. It is for a Tamiya 1/72 kit. Tamiya say to mix XF-22 and XF-49 which is ok but I prefer to use one paint to do the job.

Tony..

[Guest]

RLM 02...hmmm, I think the Tamiya XF-22 is a touch dark,Im sure the guys who use other brands will aid you with a good match Tony, cant remember off hand when the switch came to RLM 66, maybe 1940.

But the mix Tamiya recommend gets it pretty close.

I dont think you will be hung if you just use XF-22....lol

[Guest]

I prefer to use Vallejo for painting the Bf109-E. Just done a small search and there are so many colours and shades used.

Tony..

[Guest]

Vallejo...hmmm have a look at the Vallejo no.886 which is called Green Grey.

[Guest]

Cheers Ray.

Tony..

[stona]

Unless you have good evidence to the contrary you need a match for RLM02 which is indeed a green/grey colour.

Ray there really was no set switch over. Many bombers rolled off the junkers line with 66 interiors in early 1940. There is a suspicion that some Heinkel aircraft were painted this way before the war! There are pictures of downed Bf109s in 1940 where at least the area above the cockpit sills is in a dark colour,presumably RLM66. 109Es that had been damaged and significantly repaired also seem to have gained darker interiors in 1940,this maybe down to which contractor (Fiesler,Arado etc) did the work.

Nevertheless,if you don't have any firm evidence,RLM02 was still the officially designated interior colour for 109Es. The F series seem to have appeared with the RLM66 interiors common to all Luftwaffe fighters from that time on.

Dave Wadman wrote an excellent article detailing his extensive research into this area which I think is online somewhere but I can't seem to find a link to it.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

For the time being its RLM02 for the cockpit and airframe. Cheers Steve and Ray for your help.

Tony..

[Guest]

As always another interesting piece of info Steve,the colour change has always confused me, and I can spend ages pondering that and reading about it before I do a cockpit....drives me nuts sometimes.

Maybe if you get time you could do a ref thread Steve, it would be very helpful.raying:

[Guest]

I second that Ray.

Tony..

[Guest]

Xtracrylix do a pretty good RLM66 - I'm using it on the Hasegawa FW190A-8.

[stona]

Xtracrylix do a pretty good RLM66 - I'm using it on the Hasegawa FW190A-8.

All Xtracrylix RLM colours are very good. It's always open to interpretation but I use them as the basis for all my Luftwaffe schemes.

Ray,I might just do that,but it will have to wait until I get home as the only references I have with me are my own notes and piccies on this computer. Here is an idea of the sort of evidence that is not that rare.

Here is a picture of a Bf109E-1. It was flown by Werner Bartels of III./JG26. The W.Nr is6296F. The F stands for "flugklar" which means this aircraft was damaged,then refurbished and cleared for flying again. The retrofitted later style canopy is obviously in RLM66 but interestingly so is the cockpit interior.

The date? On or shortly after this machine was shot down on 24th July 1940. Far too early for an RLM66 interior according to those who like hard and fast rules!

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

Look forward to it Steve, thanks for considering it.